Understanding the principal requirements for pest status determination

Rome, 28 September 2021. Determining pest status is one of the key activities undertaken by national plant protection organizations (NPPOs) to implement the International Plant Protection Convention. The newly published Pest Status Guide will assist countries to determine the status of plant pests within their territories in accordance with international standards.
  This guide describes the steps that plant protection organizations should follow when determining the status of a pest. It also provides guidance on gathering and evaluating information, assessing sources of uncertainty, and using pest records and other relevant information to determine whether a pest is absent or present and to select the appropriate pest status category. The Pest Status Guide also discusses how the outcomes of pest status determination may be used in pest reporting and for determining whether a pest meets the criteria to be considered a regulated pest. Finally, it also considers pest status in the context of market access.   Incorporating several case studies from around the world, the guide is a useful resource for NPPOs and private- and public-sector stakeholders and provides guidance to facilitate implementation of International Standard for Phytosanitary Measures (ISPM) No. 8 (Determination of pest status in an area) and other relevant ISPMs.   The IPPC Secretariat will host a webinar titled Pest Status, Surveillance and Systems Approaches on 22 October to launch the Pest Status Guide and two other new implementation and capacity development products. The webinar will be in English with simultaneous interpretation to Arabic and French.

We would love to hear from you! Please send an email to [email protected] and share your feedback on the new Pest Status Guide. Your responses will help the IPPC Secretariat and the IPPC Commission on Phytosanitary Measures (CPM) Implementation and Capacity Development Committee (IC) strengthen this and other IPPC guides and training materials.   Please contact the IPPC Secretariat ([email protected]) if you would like to learn how you can support the translation of this important implementation and capacity development resource into other FAO languages.